Paul HERCZEG / HERZEG (1927 - 2020)

Paul will be terribly missed and lovingly remembered by them, his grandchildren Jeremy and Arielle Sholzberg, step-granddaughter Isabel Tallevi, stepdaughter Sue Tallevi and husband Stephen, brother-in-law Robert Singer and wife Judy, niece and nephews Jackie Singer, Jeff Singer, Pal Szabo and their families, former son-in-law Michael Sholzberg, countless relatives and friends, all of whom respected and adored him.

Paul was predeceased by his first wife Judy. Even 24 years after her passing, he would still tear up at the mention of her name. He was also predeceased by his siblings Endre and Irma Szabo of Budapest, Hungary and by his parents Armin and Regina, who along with nearly all his relatives, were murdered in the Holocaust.

Paul grew up in Ujpest, a working-class suburb he liked to call "the Pointe-Saint-Charles of Budapest". He always had a soccer ball at his feet, loved learning poetry and German in school, sang in both his synagogue choir and a famous boys' choir which performed on national radio. He and his friends loved to swim in the toxic swamp that was then the Danube River, which he always joked was responsible for 85+ years of perfect health, having built up his immunity!

When, in the spring of 1944, the occupying Germans and Hungarian fascist government rounded up Hungary's Jews for extermination, Paul and his parents were deported by cattle car to Auschwitz, alongside Otto Schimmel, his best friend since the age of 10. Upon arrival, Paul's mother and Otto's family were sent to their death in the gas chambers. After two months in Auschwitz, Paul, his father and Otto were transferred to Muhldorf, a sub-camp of the Dachau concentration camp. Paul's father soon succumbed to the hard labour, starvation and cold. In late April 1945, as the Allies approached, the Nazis herded the camp's 3600 inmates onto cattle cars destined for the Bavarian Alps, where a mass extermination was planned. The death train never reached its destination. On May 1st, the US Army liberated the survivors onboard, who became the first residents of the Feldafing Displaced Persons Camp.

It was on the death train that Paul met Tibor (Teddy) Bolgar, who became Paul's beloved surrogate older brother, in whom he would confide, and on whose wisdom he would rely, throughout his life. The many friends made in Feldafing, then in Weilheim, Germany, became lifelong friends; traumatized by their horrific experiences and the loss of their families, they shared an enduring bond. Paul loved to tell stories about those post-war years when - giddy with freedom - they had food, jobs (Paul played soccer professionally), supplemental income thanks to some minor black-marketeering, and ample opportunity to sow their wild oats, all-the-while being entertained by Otto's outrageous pranks and hijinks. As Paul described it, "We were always laughing. Always laughing."

In 1948, "the boys" immigrated to either the US, Australia, Canada or returned to Hungary. Paul, Teddy and several of their buddies arrived in Montreal, where they worked hard - Paul in retail, and later importing - eventually marrying and starting families. In 1958, Paul married Judy, whose family fled Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Best man Teddy and his wife walked Paul down the aisle. In 1962, Paul and Judy's daughter Lynn was born and they took tremendous pleasure in providing her with the opportunities that war and revolution had stolen from them. In 1996, Paul was devastated when he lost Judy, just 55 years old, to cancer. Fortunately, he was soon blessed with a second beautiful marriage to Ina, who Lynn suspects her mother somehow guided to her father. Teddy was best man at their wedding, too.

Paul was one of the founders of the Montreal Holocaust Museum. For nearly two decades after his retirement, to combat Holocaust denial, he visited schools throughout Greater Montreal and beyond to speak about his wartime experiences. He conceived and financed a project to erect memorial plaques on former synagogues in ten Hungarian towns where the Jewish populations were exterminated. He maintained a 20-year friendship with members of a Christian bible study group in Germany which had, among other Holocaust commemoration projects, restored a long-neglected memorial to the victims of the Muhldorf concentration camp. He also participated in research on the long-term effects of trauma, as part of an academic paper on the appalling abuse of First Nations children in residential schools, and while doing so, delightfully forged a friendship with the professor, who he affectionately referred to as his "Mohawk brother". Paul's hilarious stories about his early years in Montreal are immortalized in the book The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home After the Holocaust, which details the experiences of Holocaust survivors who arrived and settled in Montreal. He, Teddy and their other buddies recount many of these stories in the downloadable audio walking tour Refugee Boulevard: Making Montreal Home After the Holocaust. In his spare time, when not quoting or doing a bad impersonation of his hero Sir Winston Churchill, Paul loved to immerse himself in his vast collection of history books.

As his life was drawing to a close, Paul joyfully said, "To die at this age, after leading such a full and happy life, is not a tragedy, but a celebration!" We celebrate Paul's big smile, twinkling eyes, good nature and gentle spirit, which left no one he met untouched. We celebrate his quiet wisdom. We celebrate the honesty and integrity he modelled to his daughter and grandchildren, who were his pride and joy. We celebrate the meaningful friendships he treasured throughout his lifetime. We celebrate his eternal gratitude to the WWII veterans to whom he owed his life. We celebrate his love of this wonderful country whose values he espoused. We celebrate that he never met a Henny Youngman one-liner that he didn't like...and couldn't resist telling over and over again, for years, laughing. Always laughing.

A private burial was held on May 11. The family will be forever grateful to the extraordinary caregivers of the CLSC Saint-Henri and NOVA, who treated Paul as though he was their own beloved grandfather. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Paul's memory to The Montreal Holocaust Museum, (514) 345-2605. Arrangements entrusted to Paperman & Sons.